Hiroshi Kanbe

A family drama set in the late nineteenth century Japan, as the feudal Shogun period was giving way to the Meiji Restoration. (Empire Pictures)

Gakko tells a simple heartwarming story of a group of students and their teacher, in one of the public night schools in Japan providing them education at the Junior High level. With night schools, you know that the students are working adults, and the narrative takes its time to dwell on the characters' backgrounds, and their interactions with the teacher, how he helped them in their times of need, or simply being the beacon of hope for them. (imdb)

A reporter Mizuno (Tomorowo Taguchi) has been shunted off to a small village. Hirano (Takeshi Wakamatsu), the chief priest of a local Shinto shrine, tells him that Teruko (Sarara Tsukifune), the owner of a small bar where Mizuno has been with the chief correspondent, is involved with a cult sect and she is suspected of murders for insurance money. Eager to get a scoop so that he can return to the head office, Mizuno looks into the matter and questions Teruko directly. (AsianMediaWiki)

A teacher at a school for students with disabilities tries to improve their lives.

A teenage girl Asako (Aya Ueto) takes a day off school to rethink her life. She meets a 10-year-old boy Aoki (Shichinosuke Nakamura) who introduces the cyberworld to her. Asako discovers that pretending to be a grown-up woman can give significant financial profits...

Rikutaro Maehara lives alone with his mother, who works at a hostess club. (wikipedia.org)